To Elinor: A Romance in Two Voices

Darrow fell in love with Elinor at first sight. But she was already engaged. To two men.

He joined the Merchant Marine to train as a radio operator. His letters from Gallups Island and then the war charmed her, but Elinor had changed. Women entered the working world—as boatbuilders and micrometer testers and even riveters and movie stars—and she wanted to become Something Big. Marriage wasn’t for her.

Darrow’s letters kept coming. . .

• . . the same letters my sister and I discovered in a large photo box after our parents’ deaths. Their romance was interrupted by the war and by the fledgling dreams of a woman, a Bishop’s daughter, who wanted to do something more than carry on the traditional roles women had in the forties.

The tale of this romance is in both voices—Elinor’s from the homefront and Darrow’s from the war.